Religion is also the point of view from which this existence is known. But as regards the different forms of knowledge existing in Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy appears to be opposed to the conception in Religion that the universal mind first shows itself as external, in the objective mode of consciousness. Worship, commencing with the external, then turns against and abrogates it as has just been said, and thus Philosophy is justified through the acts and forms of worship, and only does what they do. Philosophy has to deal with two different objects; first as in the Religion present in worship, with the substantial content, the spiritual soul, and secondly with bringing this before consciousness as object, but in the form of thought. Philosophy thinks and conceives of that which Religion represents as the object of consciousness, whether it is as the work of the imagination or as existent facts in history. The form of the knowledge of the object is, in religious consciousness, such as pertains to the ordinary idea, and is thus more or less sensuous in nature. In Philosophy we do not say that God begot a Son, which is a relation derived from natural life. Thought, or the substance of such a relation, is therefore still recognized in Philosophy. Since Philosophy thinks its object, it has the advantage of uniting the two stages of religious consciousness—which in Religion are different moments—into one unity in philosophic thought. It is these two forms which are different from one another and which, as opposed, may therefore seem to be mutually conflicting; and it is natural and it necessarily seems to be the case, that on first definitely coming to view they are so to speak conscious of their diversity, and hence at first appear as inimical to one another. The first stage in the order of manifestation is definite existence, or a determinate Being-for-self as opposed to the other. The later form is that Thought embraces itself in the concrete, immerses itself in itself, and Mind, as such, comes in it to consciousness. In the earlier stage, Mind is abstract, and in this constraint it knows itself to be different, and in opposition to the other. When it embraces itself in the concrete, it is no more simply confined in determinate existence, only knowing or possessing itself in that diversity, but it is the Universal which, inasmuch as it determines itself, contains its “other” within itself. As concrete intelligence, Mind thus comprehends the substantial in the form which seemed to differ from it, of which it had only grasped the outward manifestation and had turned away from it; it recognizes itself in its inward content, and so it for the first time grasps its object, and deals justice to its opposite.